


Red Sky at Night

by Bunn1cula



Series: our ships were meant to break [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, First Meetings, Flirting, gratuitous astronomical metaphors, gratuitous nerdspeak, seriously geeky flirting, too smart for their own good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 14:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11648424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunn1cula/pseuds/Bunn1cula
Summary: Stars above, she was smiling at him. Beaming, even. This woman—this singularity (for the rest of the universe had surely disappeared into her maw by now)—looking like that athim. “A single tachyon? But how is this done?”“Contained particle annihilation, obviously.”





	Red Sky at Night

“Your hair. It’s terribly long by current fashion.” 

“Hmm?” He turned towards the feminine voice behind him. “Oh…” He felt his breath leave him once he matched the voice to a face. That face. Of course he’d noticed her across the room straight away, but assumed everyone else had as well. She was, without exaggerating, astonishing. But she had to know it—women that looked like that always did—so he tried to cover his reaction. “It’s been a busy term.” 

“University?”

“Yes, third year.”

“Where?”

“Corellia.”

“Corellia,” she repeated, looking him up and down. “Starships,” she swirled the glass in her hand, “or distilling?”

“Would you believe agricultural science?”

She took his hand, the one without a drink, and turned it palm-up. She smirked. “No.”

“Hmm. Curious and observant.” 

“Yes, I’m full of party tricks.” She sipped from her glass. “Now go on, your turn.”

“My turn for what?”

“Tell me something about myself. Let’s see how observant you are.”

Stars, she was beautiful…no. More than that. Exquisite. But that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. It was too easy, too cheap, and didn’t require any ingenuity at all. It would take something more…intelligent to make an impression on her.

He dropped his eyes, scanning her for hints that would tell him something about her, while trying not to linger too long on her womanly assets. That was hard. 

He forced his gaze upwards. A sparkling inlaid crystal on a pendant nestled against her sternum, held by a delicate rosemetal chain. What an unusual piece. The stone…was it flashing in the center? The effect was so subtle, it could have easily been mistaken for the glittering of facets. “May I?” He tilted his head, gesturing to the necklace. 

She stepped forward, boldly close. Her hair smelled faintly of jesmin and lily, and he was momentarily transported back to a childhood holiday spent in Port Landien on Naboo. Beaches and perfumeries, exotic floral scents carried on salty breezes.

Careful not to touch her impolitely, he reached out, grasped the pendant between his fingers and let it rest against his palm. 

It _was_ flashing; a tiny white beacon suspended in ice blue. Like a pinpoint-sized pulsar. He leaned in for a closer look. From this position, he could have peered down the front of her dress, if he’d wanted. And he did want to, but he kept his eyes on the mesmerizing crystal. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“I beg to differ. That is, if you’ve ever done any space travel—which, I believe, is what a trip home from Corellia for end-of-term holiday does entail.” Her sly expression met his puzzled one.

“Sorry, I don’t follow.” He gave her a courteous half-smile but narrowed his eyes, trying to parse her out. 

“Hyperspace.” 

“What about it?”

She looked at him expectantly but he still didn’t have the thread. “Come on now, don’t disappoint me. A future space architect must understand how the process of hyperlight travel works.”

“I never told you my field of study.”

“You didn’t have to. Now come on. Doesn’t that flash remind you of something? Like when your ship comes out of a jump, back into realspace?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so.”

“So think it through. Tell me what makes my little necklace twinkle like this.” It was a dare. A hopeful one, if he wasn’t mistaken. 

_Think it through. All right. Hyperspace…rather, travel through hyperspace…is achieved by manipulating hypermatter through controlled reactions. The energy is produced from disrupted particles, which—what? Hold on. No…_

_Sithspit…could it possibly be?_

“Would you like a hint?” But she didn’t wait for his response. “It’s nothing to do with photons.”

“It’s a _tachyon?_ ”

Stars above, she was smiling at him. Beaming, even. This woman—this singularity (for the rest of the universe had surely disappeared into her maw by now)—looking like that at _him_. “A single tachyon? But how is this done?”

“Contained particle annihilation, obviously.”

She was teasing him, but he ignored it. “You mean to tell me you’re wearing a _hypermatter reactor_ around your neck?”

She laughed; a perfectly shameless open-mouthed laugh, as unrestrained as any man’s would be. Not like the society girls he’d known, bred to be prim and bland. “I’ve come to regard it as a talisman protecting me from idiots, actually.”

“Are you insane?” He laughed with her. “Where did you get this?”

“I constructed it.”

He stared at her. “Please tell me you aren’t joking.”

“I’m not joking.”

 _Fucking hell_ …“Who _are_ you?”

She sipped from her glass. “Are you coming to the Chief Magistrate’s dinner next week?”

“I hadn’t planned on it. I don’t know her.” 

“Oh. Pity,” she said, dragging a finger across his jacket as she walked away. “Then I guess you won’t know her daughter, either.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ailsa's last name is an homage to the amazing particle physicist [Fabiola Gianotti](https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2014/nov/09/fabiola-gianotti-new-director-general-cern) of CERN.


End file.
